iBomber Defense sneaks onto Xbox Windows Phone as a Nokia exclusive

It’s always a good time to be a Nokia owner, but especially when a new exclusive app or game comes around. We’ve just received another surprise exclusive, this one turning up quite randomly on a Friday evening. A little advance notice would be nice, but it’s still good news for people with Lumias in their pockets.

The newly released Xbox Windows Phone game is iBomber Defense from Chillingo (EA) and Scottish developer Cobra Mobile. Like Jet Set Go, this one wasn’t part of the first 20 exclusive games announced by EA, so there could be even more titles included in the exclusivity deal that we don’t know about.

Tower time

As the name might’ve clued you in, iBomber Defense is a tower defense game. That genre is a little overpopulated on some platforms, but not Xbox Windows Phone where all we have are Plants vs Zombies, both geoDefense games, and Zombie Attack 2. Unlike those games, iBomber utilizes a realistic military theme, with the player’s towers fending off attacking soldiers, tanks, ships, planes, and the like.

iBomber is a highly approachable game, thanks in part to the art style reminiscent of Flight Control. It plays a lot like the first geoDefense, with enemies approaching from one or two points and following set paths towards the player’s base. By building and upgrading towers as soon as you can afford them, you’ll hopefully keep the foes at bay and protect your base’s precious hearts.

Lots to defend

The game consists of two campaigns (one for each side of the conflict), each with Achievements for perfection completion (not taking damage). The campaign difficulty seems quite reasonable when played on a lower difficulty setting – you can even rewind back to a previous wave if things get go all Saving Private Ryan on you. Players looking for a challenge can simply crank up the difficulty. I’d save the higher difficulty for your Quick Play mode playthroughs though.

Quick Play mode allows players to jump into any of the 22 missions they’ve unlocked from the campaign. Most of the Achievements revolve around perfect Quick Play completions on various difficulty levels. Here’s a pretty good guide if you need help. Additionally, the Windows Phone port includes two bonus missions which might be new to this version, much like the Mango levels in Chillingo’s Contre Jour.

iBomber Defense costs $2.99 and has a free trial. It works great on both WP7 and WP8 (though it did crash on my Lumia 920 once so far). You can view its WP Store page here, but the game can only be purchased from Nokia Lumia phones.

Thanks to Jonas and SlowSlayer for the tips!

Steamed about exclusivity

Don’t have a Nokia Windows Phone? You can still grab iBomber Defense on the PC or Mac. The Steam version just so happens to be on sale for $1.24 through January 5th. It’s also available in a bundle with the sequel iBomber Defense Pacific for just $1.99 during the same sale. Don’t gripe about the Windows Phone version’s price too loudly though, because the Steam game regularly sells for five bucks.

I'm getting tired of hearing people complain about Nokia supposedly fragmenting the platform. They're not. Why should they put their money and resources into something and let the other OEM's benefit?. Windows phone is still trying establish itself as a viable 3rd platform. Nokia itself is fighting for its own survival. Let HTC, Samsung and other OEM's put some skin in the game. They owe Nokia far more than Nokia owes them. The other OEM's even without the exsclusive apps are still benefiting tremendously from what Nokia has brought to Windows phone. The growing user they have is here because of Nokia.

I don't get it why Microsoft is allowing to build a 2nd class system. I got a HTC 8x and cant use a app which is build for the same OS. Nokia probably paid the developers to port the game. The decision to use wp8 is getting more complicated with this fragmentation of the market.

Because Nokia has connections and leverage within the mobile world that Microsoft simply doesn't have. Like you said, Nokia probably provided cash (and developers) for this game (and many others) to be ported. I really don't like 3rd-party exclusives either, but it wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for Nokia.

Why should it? They are here to please their own customers and offer the best product. Ask HTC to do something for the platform... i think they are too busy with Android,

Well Nokia is the only reason WP is selling at all at the moment and the reason developers even jumped to it year ago.
You need to remember that Nokia is a software house as well with 130 000 people working for the company, 30 000 more than Microsoft has employees. Naturally Nokia isn't giving away its own IP's where it has over 33 of its own developed apps that it has been doing since Symbian in 2001. I just hope swipe that is owned by Samsung and Nokia arrived to Lumias at some point.

So naturally you wont see change there. Just be happy that Nokia is on the WP camp and is at least gathering some interest to the platform.

But to compare Nokia with HTC is difficult. Nokia is on a complete different point then HTC. Nokia was once leader in the mobile world and they are now betting only on one horse to rescue they're complete business. So im surely not going to blame HTC.

I just believe that WP8 to new consumers (non techie) is getting more difficult. Imagine someone asks you about your phone and your telling them: yes its wp8, no you cant use this app because its made for another OEM. Ah ok, same OS different Marketplace?

Maybe im to pessimistic and this fragmentation is only in the start of wp8. But if not, your bound to Nokia same as your bound to Apple. Maybe at the end of next year Sony or who ever is building a far more sophisticated phone then lets say a Lumia 1020, but you already paid and used a lot of apps for the Nokia Market, then you have to accept a weaker phone hardware.

Anyway, maybe im just pissed reading news about a great app here on wpcentral which is ending with the words: Nokia exclusive. ;)

This is 3.49 in Australia, I'm so completely sick of being screwed on price. There is no reason for it, our dollar has traded higher than the US dollar for two years so its not exchange rates. There is no delivery infrastructure cost because its electronic, not that. It must be our ACCENT.

Get yourself a marketplace changer... I have one installed on my phone called "Marketplace Config" and it will even set a max of 200mb for downloads for a session. SO you could download MOST apps over your 3G/4G connection. A worthy app...(need to be unlocked tho).

Played the game.for a few hours on my Lumia 920. Crashes about 75% of the time in the loading screen after you finish a mission. Kinda annoying. But still I like the game. It also can't seem to handle the enemies on screen if you use the speed up button which is disappointing. The frame rate approaches zero.

Did anyone who got this game figure out Quickplay? No matter what mission I select, before I start, it only gives me one upgrade point to use. This makes completing many of the missions impossible. I am guessing it is a glitch and another classic fail of a port from other platforms.

I want to buy this game on my Lumia 920 but when i search for the title nothing comes up. I looked in nokia collection and I can see Jet Set Go but iBomber is nowhere to be found. How Can I download this? I am in the US